Joe Pernice set to release new novel, companion album

Thursday

Jul 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2009 at 8:01 AM

Joe Pernice will release “It Feels So Good When I Stop (Novel Soundtrack)” on his own Ashmont Records on Tuesday. The novel of the same name that inspired the album, “It Feels So Good When I Stop,” arrives two days later from Penguin imprint Riverhead Books. Pernice talks about the projcess of writing the book.

Chad Berndtson

Joe Pernice’s last Pernice Brothers album was 2006’s “Live a Little,” and given the pace at which he was putting out albums – eight in seven years, if you count a tour extended-play album and non-Pernice Brothers efforts – it’s reasonable to ask what he's been up to lately.

As might be expected, there’s a good reason why he’s taken so long to follow it up: Pernice found his inner novelist (again, as it turns out), and ran with that inspiration, and the result of two years behind the scenes is his debut, full-length novel and a companion album, both of which come out next week.

Pernice, a former Holbrook, Mass., resident who lives in Toronto, will release “It Feels So Good When I Stop (Novel Soundtrack)” on his own Ashmont Records on Tuesday. The novel of the same name that inspired the album, “It Feels So Good When I Stop,” arrives two days later from Penguin imprint Riverhead Books.

The novel is a real kick: a dark-toned work with moments of great humor and relish, thanks to a lovably screwed-up narrator who strikes much the same world-weary, sophisticated tone as found in many of Pernice’s best songs. All told, it’s actually Pernice’s third book; he previously published a volume of poetry, “Two Blind Pigeons,” and a look at the Smiths’ “Meat Is Murder” for Continuum Books’ ongoing 33 1/3 series of slim, scholarly volumes on beloved rock albums.

The “Feels So Good” soundtrack pulls Pernice’s two sides together – a covers album that finds him interpreting many of the songs called out or referenced in the novel. They include nuggets from Sebadoh, Tom T. Hall, Del Shannon, Todd Rundgren, and even “Chim Chim Cher-oo” from the movie “Mary Poppins.” The songs also include “Black Smoke (No Pope),” a song by the fictional band from Pernice’s novel, the Young Accuser, and, in a bit of meta-realization, performed by Pernice.

Q: How long have you been in Toronto now? I remember the last time we caught up you were getting ready to move.

A: I think I’ve been here for about three years, although I still do a lot of traveling back and forth. Most of my in-laws are here, and most of my family is still back in Massachusetts. I do miss seeing them regularly, but I like Toronto. It’s a pretty kind city. I’m not too excited about the weather: The winter is brutal and the summer’s not all that nice temperature-wise, but as far as a lot of other things, it’s cool.

Q: Remind me: what prompted your move up there?

A: My wife is Canadian, and when we first got married we knew we wanted to have a kid, so part of the deal was, if I was going to be on the road a lot she’d want to be with her family while I was away.

Q: Let’s talk about your upcoming tour, which is a balance of both music and reading so you could do something with the book and the companion album all at once. Something a little different, yes?

A: That’s kind of why I did it, yeah, because you don’t see too much of it. I just thought it was a refreshing and cool way to combine the two and promote the two things at once. I think I’ve chosen three passages from the book, which might total about 20 to 25 minutes of reading. I’ll read a passage and then play a handful of songs from the album and the book, then read, play some tunes, read, play some tunes. I’ll open it up a little bit – I only recorded 10 or 11 songs mentioned in the book because I didn’t have a chance to do them all, and I might do some that never made it to the soundtrack. Depending on how the time goes and if people are into it, I might pull out some older tunes or finish the show with ’em.

Q: Why a book and an album together?

A: I was writing the book and I wasn’t planning on recording an album. I knew music would find its way into the book, though, because those are songs that mean a lot to me. It occurred to me, I make records – I put them in the book because I love them but it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to record them. I’d probably have never done a covers record any other way than this. It’s a little different but it’s appropriate for me.

Q: It’s a novel, but you’re no stranger to writing long-form work. When did you decide it was time to start in on it?

A: Well, in 2003, I released “Meat Is Murder” for the 331/3 series. I was one of the first people to sign on to that series, you know, and I kind of tricked the editor into letting me write it as a fiction piece. I didn’t really want to write a critical piece, and the guy said what the heck, write a novella. That was a lot of fun. Then, a few years ago, I got an e-mail from someone at Riverhead who said I loved your Smiths book and if you ever want to write a full novel, give us a call, we’d love to publish it.

About a year-and-a-half passed since then, and the idea started to brew. I had some chunks of time, so I sat down, wrote a rough outline of what the book could be like and a sample chapter and sent it to them. Once I had the deal in place I carved out a certain amount of time every day and basically put music on hold to focus completely on the book. It was nice to have a break from making records. I mean, I made 11 or 12 albums in succession with not many breaks in there, and it was nice to not think about music or the music business, and have a long, solitary process and project in front of me. It’s made me really refreshed, actually.

Q: I know you’re also working on a new album of original music for next year. Did that refreshment translate when you went back to songwriting and into the studio?

A: Definitely. There’s a record that’s almost done that’s going to come out next year and I went back to that with a real different attitude – so chill, really stripped away. I don’t know, I don’t have the vocabulary for it right now but I did go into it more relaxed and felt I was able to focus on more of the essence. Don’t kill it with a lot of “stuff,” you know?

Q: But you’ve released some pretty accomplished albums in the past few years, anyway. They wouldn’t hint at burnout, I mean.

A: Maybe it’s just something I needed to get away from for a while and didn’t know it. A couple of the last Pernice Brothers records are very pristine – there’s not a lot of flaws on them in terms of sound and playing, and that’s the way I wanted it, but there was also a certain meticulous attention to deal. I wanted to let my guard down a little and be more loose, you know? Instead of belaboring a point or doing a million takes, if the first take is good, we say that’s fine and move on. If the song’s in the wheelhouse after that first take, you let it go and don’t do a second take.

Q: In a lot of the press materials and advance word for the book, you’re compared a little bit to Nick Hornby. I guess I get some of that: somewhat quirky, world-weary protagonists and lots of music referencing. But it doesn’t seem accurate overall – your stuff is much edgier.

A: I think I’m going to get that and I’ll take it, so what the hell. I know Nick and he’s a good guy. But my book is filthy compared to his books – you’re right, it has a much harder edge. I wasn’t really thinking about a plot in the beginning – I know I wanted to straddle this line of something that’s funny and heartbreaking, and for the main character, I wanted to do something interesting than a screw-up just pulling his life together.

I wanted a decent, good-hearted, genuinely good character who has these epic flaws and doesn’t even realize how flawed he is. My narrator is in a state of confusion because he just doesn’t have a clue how messed up he really is. I wanted him to become more aware of that, but not necessarily have everything wrapped up in a neat little bow where we know whether he gets his (act) together or not. I can’t stand that because it rarely works that way. Even when you think you have resolution, things linger, things fester, things bite you when you think they’re defanged. I wanted to explore that.

Q: Will you write another novel?

A: Writing this one took a lot out of money, but I think I would. Some writers, I don’t know how they do it where they’re constantly writing books. But I think the circles around the typewriter will get smaller – I hope so anyway! I have repetitive stress just from sitting down in front of of it, and I’ve never had any problems physically playing guitar or performing. With the book though, I was sitting in one position for four hours – I had a four-hour window every day to work because that was my schedule. My doctor told me if you’re going to do this ever again, get yourself a decent chair – a Herman Miller chair.

Q: Why the set schedule – did you need that focused block of time? A lot of songwriters, anyway, aren’t on a set schedule for writing and it doesn’t seem like you would be.

A: The book was the same block of time every day, because I take care of my son a lot during the day. Being a parent, it’s just exhausting, and I had a window of time every day where my son had a nanny, so I had to use that to work. In a way though, there’s motivation in parenthood for a project like this. If I didn’t have a kid, I probably would have taken twice as long to write the book. I didn’t have that freedom, so it made me focus.

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